Where Town and Country Meet 



I imparted the first dash of bright color 

 to my basket of nature's jewels. Before I 

 reached the top of the slope I had added 

 also a cluster of the queerly-shaped, almost 

 oblong, scarlet berries of the barberry, one 

 of the commonest of our New England 

 shrubs, though not, I believe, indigenous. 



On the edge of the woods above the clear- 

 ing, in a little depression where water had 

 settled early in the summer and left the 

 ground moist and soft, I found a fringe of 

 chokeberry, thickly clustered with very dark 

 maroon-colored berries, shaped like tiny 

 pears. I do not remember that I ever saw 

 a shade of color exactly corresponding to 

 that of the fruit of the chokeberry. It is 

 indescribable dark maroon being the near- 

 est approach I can make to definition. The 

 milliners and dressmakers ought to adopt 

 the shade and give it a name as they have 

 done in other instances where the botanist 

 is their debtor. 



I had scarcely pushed my way into the 

 woods when, on a bank shaded by pines and 

 hemlocks, the familiar, delicate tracery of 

 the partridge-vine caught my eye, its per- 

 ennially green necklace strung with scat- 



